Dazed Art Residency: Julie Verhoeven

The illustrator on her obsession with 70s boob imagery

Artist, illustrator and general fashion darling Julie Verhoeven is the current Dazed artist-in-residence. She’s designed for Louis Vuitton and Versace and made everything from moving image to murals via illustration and installation. For this month’s Dazed she gives us boobs for thought…

I think I would be a sad specimen if I no longer found sex and gender fascinating. It’s satisfying and frustrating

Dazed Digital: How have you approached the curatorial residency? Julie Verhoeven: I wanted to present a visual feast that might sit somewhat uncomfortably in a style magazine. I took pleasure in proposing levels of naffness in a cool magazine.

DD: Why 70s boobs?Julie Verhoeven: They are just so appallingly awful and yet fabulous - making me cringe and smile with pleasure.

DD: You're often drawing on the 70’s aesthetic, what was so good about the 70s?Julie Verhoeven: I have no idea. Just when I think I have got over it I am pulled back by some 1970s overgrown magnet.

DD: What's your take on feminism 2012? What is there left to say?Julie Verhoeven: There probably is very little left to say, I just like to affiliate myself with angry, fuzzy pitted, bra-waving women.

DD: Sexual imagery and gender dichotomies seem to be a recurrent theme, why keep returning to it?Julie Verhoeven: I think I would be a sad specimen if I no longer found sex and gender fascinating. It’s satisfying and frustrating.

DD: Your work's jam packed with imagery - where else do you take and find influence from?Julie Verhoeven: Popular music is a constant, endless source.

DD: How did you get into art and fashion - which came first? Which is your first love or are they one and the same?Julie Verhoeven: Fashion came first, assisting, designing ,illustrating, tutoring and then a slow, slippery move to a more arty output. It’s taken a while to be comfortable in my head with what is indeed just one mushy practice - and that’s how it is.

DD: How do you navigate the worlds of fine art and commercial fashion? Julie Verhoeven: I just try and produce an excess of work at speed in the hope for positive results, or at least self-satisfaction and a feeling it might be relevant in some camp or other.

DD: Best artist of all time?Julie Verhoeven: Magritte!

DD: Your favourite emerging talent?Julie Verhoeven: Lucy Beech.

Julie Verhoeven is Dazed's current art-in-resident, having curated a few pages in the September issue of Dazed (pictured). The new issue of Dazed, with more of Verhoeven's inspiration and work, is out next week. The artist is currently in two exhibitions: ‘2 Sandwiches Short of a Lunchbox', Galeris Melissa, 102 Greene St\NYC, 10013, Opened 5th September 2012 and 'Fruity Seating' w/ Anthea Hamilton, Firstsite, Colchester Essex, opening 8 September 2012